Atomic Robo and the Savage Sword of Dr. Dinosaur #2

Atomic Robo and a small team of his Action Scientists are trapped deep underground, captured by the diabolical and loony Dr. Dinosaur, utilizing his beloved crystals to enslave an assortment of rock monsters. Dr. D plans to dump them all into a lava pit, just for the sake of being a crazy dinosaur, then blow up a giant nuclear weapon that he believes will dial time backwards to the age of the dinosaurs. But Robo manages to bluff him into thinking he’s stolen a vital component of his bomb, allowing the Action Scientists to make an escape, no matter how brief. Meanwhile, Majestic-12 is planning on shutting down Tesladyne permanently.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It should be enough for me to say “It’s Atomic Robo and Dr. Dinosaur,” but too many of you lunatics aren’t reading this. So basically, it’s hilariously written, there’s fantastic art, great action and dialogue and characterization, intrigue, suspense, cleverness… and it’s got Atomic Robo and Dr. Dinosaur running around the Hollow Earth. If you’re still not reading this brilliant series, you probably only read crap from Rob Liefeld and Greg Land.

The Movement #4

The cops of Coral City are getting ready to execute Katharsis, and the Movement and their allies invade the police department to get her back. And better than that, we finally learn more about the backstories of most of our main characters.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This book has had trouble finding its legs, but it definitely helps to learn more about who our heroes are and what makes them interesting. It’s too bad we had to wait four issues for this, but getting this out of the way is a good way for the comic to start becoming more interesting.

Today’s Cool Links:

• DC Comics is run by stupid people if they think they can survive by blowing off great artists because they won’t write for the Dumb White Manchild market.
• And the rot has reached a lot of prominent creators, who all seem to be afraid of writing for anyone but the Dumb White Manchild market.
• And the comic creators who aren’t complete cowards seem to be asshole sociopaths.
• Things in the comics biz have definitely gotten bad when you compare them to psycho clowns — and realize you’ve insulted the clowns.

Atomic Robo and the Savage Sword of Dr. Dinosaur #1

Huzzah! New Atomic Robo! And more Dr. Dinosaur! It’s the greatest day in history!

In the aftermath of the “Ghost of Station X” storyline, half the planet thinks Robo is an arms smuggler, even though he’s been cleared of all charges, and his population is way, way down. He hears about reports of cryptids sighted in Venezuela, realizes it’s near the site of Science City, where the Nazis ran their space program, so he takes a small team out to investigate. And while Robo is out of town, someone ships Tesladyne a nuclear bomb. Whoa, what? Someone’s trying to frame Robo! And in Venezuela, Robo and his team run into… DOCTOR DINOSAUR! (Not too shocking, since his name’s in the title.)

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s Atomic Robo! It’s Dr. Dinosaur! WHY IS THIS NOT SELLING BILLIONS OF COPIES RIGHT NOW?!?

The Green Team #2

While the Riot, a team of weird and possibly cloned villains, attack Mo Qahtanii and his new, incredibly wealthy friends, J.P. Houston slips actress Cecilia Sunbeam a technodisk that outfits her with a cybersuit similar to the one that Commodore Murphy is wearing. Unfortunately, neither Comm nor Cecilia has a clue how to operate a cybersuit. Cecilia and J.P. end up falling into the Hudson, and Comm ends up stopping his set of enemies with an old version of the Batmobile that he bought. Comm ends up crashing at Mo’s place, where he learns that Mo has been his primary rival for auctions of superhero gear, mostly in an attempt to learn more about Comm and how to become financially successful. And J.P. and Cecilia crash at a fancy hotel, where we learn that they’re secret lovers — and Cecilia learns something unfortunate about the cyberarmor’s effects on her.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Definitely better than the first issue. A lot more character work, even if what we learn is that Cecilia is shallow and rich, J.P. is headstrong and rich, Comm is idealistic, a bit stupid, and rich, and Mo is spectacularly innocent and naive and rich. Still, nice action, fun art, and a lot more fun to read.

X-Men #2

Arkea, John Sublime’s technology-possessing twin sister, has possessed the electronically-enhanced body of Karima Shapandar, the Omega Sentinel. She smacks Beast around but has a bit more trouble with Rogue. Kitty Pryde is sent after her, since she’d be able to phase through her and destroy the electronics of her body. Arkea makes a strategic retreat, and the X-Men take off in pursuit.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice action, beautiful art, fantastic characterization. Nice to see Rogue back as a superstrong bruiser, and mohawked Storm is just endlessly badass, even when she doesn’t throw a single lightning bolt the entire issue. And Jubilee is just amazingly grand. I’m really enjoying this one so much so far.

Gaah, just ain’t had a lot of time to find some more battles (I’ve been trying to spend more time doing fun writing, as opposed to blog writing, which is frequently not fun), but Friday Night Fights waits for no one, so here we are.

So tonight, here’s Atomic Robo Free Comic Book Day 2009 (which you can and should read right here) by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener, as we get to witness the first meeting between Atomic Robo and his arch-nemesis, Dr. Dinosaur!

All hail Dr. Dinosaur! ALL HAIL DR. DINOSAUR!